US refutes Finance Minister claim of not forking out CSF payments

Pakistan says US owes $1.2 billion in funds. US says it has approved $8.8 billion in CSF payments.

WASHINGTON: While presenting the federal budget on Friday, Finance Minister Hafeez Shaikh said that Pakistan is still awaiting payments of up to $1.2 billion from the US in the form of Coalition Support Fund (CSF) payments that the US has been giving Pakistan since 2002 in exchange for support in the war against terror.  

Though the US denied this, adding $8.8 billion in CSF payments have been approved for Pakistan.

“We have still not received nearly $1.2 billion in the CSF, which had an effect both on our external receipts as well as on the budget,” Shaikh told a house ringing with protests and slogans from the Opposition on Friday. Shaikh was forced to cut short his speech after a scuffle broke out in the Parliament during his speech. The English translation of the minister’s budget speech available on the Finance Ministry’s website, contained the statement.

Commander Bill Speaks, a spokesperson for the US Department of Defense, told The Express Tribune that while the department does not discuss claims, he said that the DoD “has approved more than $8.8
billion in CSF reimbursements to Pakistan since 2002.” He added that CSF was one of the issues that the US was discussing with Pakistan as part of their “broad engagement” with the government of Pakistan.

The DoD spokesperson also said that the last CSF reimbursement to Pakistan was on December 24, 2010 for the amount of $633 million.

However, when President Zardari reportedly raised the issue of Coalition Support Fund payments with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in their meeting on the sidelines of the NATO Summit in Chicago in May, he said that Pakistan had not received funds since July 2010.

Shamila N Chaudhary, the former Pakistan Director at the White House National Security Council and now an analyst at the Eurasia Group said, "The government's accounting of past due coalition support funds in next year's budgeting conveys an unrealistic confidence that the relationship with the US will improve.”

“This reimbursement program has always been a source of tension for both the US and Pakistan, and there is no reason to be sure of its future now, at the height of bilateral tensions and declining support for Pakistan in the US Congress."

In May, the US Senate voted to make aid to Pakistan conditional based on its cooperation with the US. It also pared down CSF payments to $50 million.